Maybe Then
by Preussisch
Summary: ...He'll love me. Nepeta has been giving fake smiles and laughing at everything for a bit too long. She's heartbroken to discover that Karkat and Terezi are officially matesprits, and when Gamzee hosts a party, everybody's invited. Including a jealous and ambitious greenblood. Sorry about the amazingly crappy summary. X3 Rated M for language and violence in later chapters.
1. Bound by Lock and Key

The sixteen year old troll girl let out a long sigh, wishing she could just exhale her all of her worries and sorrows- sure, she would put on her usual mask of a clueless, happy-go-lucky little midblood, without a single care in the world. But that same old was getting very tiring. In fact, the other day her best friend had even asked her if something was wrong. _**"**Of course not, Equius, what makes you think that?" "Nevermind then...of course you aren't, you're always ridiculously content. My mistake." _She smiled ruefully at the memory. Nepeta Leijon was not someone to lie to her friends - or anyone for that matter - but then noticed everybody's tired faces whenever she was going to spill her mind, all the trolls tired of arguing, taking care of their psychotic moirails, being rejected, being let down. They didn't deserve to have any more troubles and have their time and care wasted by her selfish little thoughts. "**_So I keep it all inside, bound by lock and key_**." A faint, rumbling growl echoed around the cave, Pounce signalling it was time to get some rest. _It's not like I'll be doing anything impurrtant tomorrow..._

The dim, clay-tinted moonlight found its way into the sleeping chamber, soon ending the comforting chorus of a purring, rumbling snore. A pile of furs stirred, and a few moments later the small girl appeared, looking in bewilderment at the optimistic contrast of the painted walls and brightly colored furs of her personal haven, where not even Pounce De Leon was allowed to go. Only Nepeta was allowed in the quiet nursery where she'd been sleeping through the blinding daylight since grubhood. The only thing that seemed out-of-place in the lovely little world was the owner of it herself - Nepeta rubbed at her red-rimmed eyes, already tired from silently crying herself to sleep after circling a newly confirmed flushed ship, one that she had suspected but mentally denied, until reading another blog on her Laptop (a newer Wriggling Day present) in which the uncharacteristically bashful writer of it stated that he was in a relationship with a Terezi Pyrope, one that Nepeta had role played with just days before, blissfully unaware that her friend had been together with her beloved Karkat in-between replies. She sighed and stood up, moving to the front of the polished sheet of marble that worked as a mirror after performing her morning exercises. The midblood ran a slender hand over the small scars that ran along her neck, telltale signs of her near-death experience with a sober and psychotic Gamzee. She smoothed the streaks of grey paint over them and the dark circles beneath her innocently wide eyes, afterwards standing back and looking at the unrealistically cheerful copy that stared back at her.

The smiling fake waved and yelled a bubbly goodbye to the massive white cat grooming himself and continued to leaving the stuffy cave, breathing in the cool, fresh air that washed away any trace of her true feelings like water with old ashes. She walked at a leisurely pace to the outdoor shed where she kept her laptop to charge, one of the few places in her entire land that had electricity, since she caught her own food and cleaned her belongings by hand. "**_Maybe I actually got something today...maybe it's from him_..." **Nepeta sighed dreamily and waved the thought away as impossible. She opened up her Trollian and let out a surprised breath of air when she discovered a message from Gamzee -

**tC: hey, SIS. :o)**

**tC: youre invited to my party**

**tC: its gonna be pretty motherfuckin awesome **

**tC: its at as soon as you can come over**

**tC: HONK :o)**

She giggled happily and looked down at her outfit, which consisted of loose grey sweatpants and her tattered green cloak- she hadn't worn a shirt, since she didn't realize she'd be going anywhere. _This'll need to change... _Her gaze wandered to the dress she had hung up in a corner, a gift from Kanaya that she had never had a chance to wear. _Purrfect! _Ten minutes later the dress was adorning Nepeta's slim figure, caressing her small curves and creating them where she had none. It was a dark shade of forest green with a line of rose-like ruffles stretching from the one strap to the hem, which went down to her mid-thigh. Perfect for a friendly party. Escpecially one where a certain lowblood was bound to be, since it _was_ his moirail's hive it was being hosted.


	2. The Arrival

Furry blue tail trailing on the grassy ground, the extremely nervous troll girl stood outside of her highblood friend's hive - as she had done for the past fifteen minutes or so. "_I've __**got**__ to do it...I **was** invited, after all..." _Nepeta finally built up the nerves to knock on the tall metal door, and almost immediately she saw a familiar indigo and yellow eye peering at her through the peephole. A few grunted curses were heard as the door was yanked open, revealing the beginnings of a massive bash - uncountable amounts snacks covering tables, colored lenses tinting the lights to every shade of the hemospectrum, Gamzee holding the door open for her, as well as every other troll she knew. He greeted her with playful growl along with a hug.

"**Hello Gamzee! I-Is AC on time, or does she need to go back home or something?"** She asked nervously, looking up at the tall troll as she pulled back from his tight embrace - one of her many habits was talking in third-person whenever anxious. "**Not at all, my sopor-blooded sis~ You're right on motherfuckin' time.**" Gamzee smiled in a drunken, absent way and gently nudged Nepeta inside of the spacious sea-side hive. Nepeta took a few deep breaths to calm herself down, but simply choked on thin air when she saw the reason she had come here. "**Karkat Vantas**."

The lowblood in question whipped around and fixed her with an annoyed glare at the sound of his name. "**_What-_**?" Karkat turned back around and continued his aggravated conversation with Sollux when no reply came from Nepeta. _I shouldn't have come here...Ac doesn't have any furiends, anyways...what was I thinking... _Olive-green tears welled up at the corners of her eyes as she thought about her life since the...incident with Gamzee's sober rampage. She jumped at the touch of a delicate hand on her shoulder "**Hmm**?!" A relieved sigh escaped her mouth when she recognised the face of her roleplaying friend, Tavros. "**Oh, you had me scared for a moment there, Tafuros**!" She smiled bit at his friendly reply. "**Oh, erm, I'm sorry~ I didn't mean to scare you...I just wanted to say that..**." Tavros was stopped from finishing his sentence by a certain seadweller girl giving his companion a massive hug. "Hiya, Nepeat! It's been forever since I've _sea_n you!" Both of them giggled a bit at her cheesy jokes and retreated to go get some snacks - enough animal puns to make Karkat fling a cup at them being heard from across the room - leaving Tavros alone to brood in his thoughts until Gamzee found him again.


	3. A bit of jealousy

Nepeta giggled half-heartedly at one of her seadweller friend's fish puns, the hilarity of them dying down after ten minutes' worth of the cheesy jokes. **"****_Sea_**** you later, I've gotta use the restroom~" **She bolted towards the tall, spiraling staircase, relieved for a break from the she didn't actually need to go, Nepeta just wanted to take a quick breather from everything. It took at least five minutes just for her to get up most of it.

* * *

Her cat-like eyes closed for a moment, taking deep breaths when she finally reached the second floor. The olive-blooded girl's heart skipped a beat when she heard something she had been hoping wouldn't cross her path for the rest of her life. **"Hey, Nepeta! How's it goin'?"** She looked up to see the cause of all of her latest troubles, worries, the source of her unhappiness. **"H-hello, Purrezi." **A sharp exhale came from Nepeta's mouth when an unexpected hug enveloped her from Terezi. **"It's been forever! You need to get out more, like when we used to roleplay and do fun shit all the time! What happened to that?" **Nepeta forced a smile on and shrugged. "**Oh, I've just been busy, with all of this cleaning up after the whole Noir thing, and it took hours just to convince Pounce to let me come to this purrty, anyways."**

* * *

Terezi smirked and loosened her embrace. **"Well, it's great to see you here. You look as cute as ever! And why so glum? You sound like Karkles after-"** A small, blank smile formed on Nepeta's face as she looked up at the teal lines trickling from the older girl's mouth. **"Mentioning Karkitty was the worst choice you efur made~ And the last one, too!" **She withdrew her metallic claws from inside Terezi and released her from the hug. Four massive green-blue splashes were now decorating the front of her knee-length ruffled dress, most likely a gift from Kanaya to celebrate her and Karkat's one-year-anniversary. "**Hmm, it was too plain." **Nepeta's pupils dilated when she realized that the midblood's chest was still rising with her shallow breaths. **"Oh, I'll take care of that for you!" **Choked, silent screams came from Terezi's mouth when the cat girl began hacking her knife-like claws all throughout her body, first scissoring her legs to the bone, then disembowling her from the pelvis to her torso- silencing her from speaking about Karkat forever.

* * *

A trail of bloody footprints followed the girl as she started walking back down the stairs after cleansing her hands and mouth in the bathroom, giggling to herself.

* * *

**LE AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's not over yet, there's still gonna be quite a few more gore-filled chapters. herp derp :B AND THANK YOU TO EFURRYONE WHO FOLLOWED OR REVIEWED THIS 3**


	4. The Silencing

Nepeta hopped down from the staircase and was soon greeted by Kanaya, one of friends that could be traced from current times to back when their ancestors still preached throughout Alternia, but she was known as Porrim or even The Dolorosa back then. Nepeta accepted the small hug from her and let the jadeblood carefully asess how she looked in the outfit, adjusting the short sleeves of the dress so that they hung off from her thin shoulders.** "You look darling in that dress, just like I thought you would. But it needs a bit more...pop." **Kanaya, ever prepared for any fashion situation, quickly took a shiny tube of dark green lipstick from the fabric clutch that she carried around and expertly smeared it on Nepeta's thin lips, making them seem fuller and shinier then before. Nepeta stood still as her friend made up her face. After at least ten minutes, which seemed ages to the cat-troll, Kanaya finally finished applying the metallic grey eyeshadow, olive mascara and lip-gloss, and several coats of hairspray to the impatient girl. When everything was finished she handed a small hand-held mirror to Nepeta, who nodded in approval while she admired the aristocrat's handiwork.

* * *

Kanaya eyed Nepeta suspiciously as she finally began to walk away, her keen gaze raking the greenblood over from her golden-yellow horns down to the ruffles of her dress. "**Nepeta, dear, I believe you have something on your feet. I don't mean to be rude, but...what exactly is that stuff?**" The vivid teal stains embedded in her fuzzy blue shoes had caught her eye, causing Kanaya to knit her eyebrows together and rest a hand on Nepeta's shoulder. She whipped around and looked at her. _She seems to be acting guilty enough...But those stains can't be..._ Her troublesome thoughts were ended by Nepeta's teeth at her throat, sinking through flesh and her windpipe like a hot knife through butter. The rainbow drinker let out a silent scream, only causing brilliantly colored blood to bubble from her mouth and producing a disgusting gurgling noise in her torn. Nepeta remained on her tip-toes, attempting to make Kanaya's death easier and painless, only drawing out the suffering in the process. After a good ten minutes the former aristocrat's body finally slumped to the floor, where her murderer murmured a quick apology and tried to make her expression of distress into one of contentment. **"I'm sorry...but you would tell, I just know it." **Nepeta spent the next few minutes conversing with the corpse before Kanaya's abandoned handbag caught her attention. She crawled over to it and began sifting through the contents, withdrawing a tube of pale blue lipstick and a pocketknife.

* * *

A half hour later, Kanaya's body lay next to Terezi's, her makeup perfect and orderly composed body seemingly unscathed compared to the mutilated corpse of the formerly spontaneous and outgoing blind girl's.


	5. A Glimpse into the Truth

Author's note ::

You guys, I'm so, so sorry for going on Hiatus without warning! XI I've just been very busy, and had a big writer's block, plus catching up with school work. So, here's the next chapter! Love You guise! ;u;

* * *

Gamzee exhaled deeply, releasing a cloud of smoke into the cool night air. "Ain't this nice, spending a bit of time with all our friends, just like we did before the motherfucking timeline-mess happened?" He leaned against the guardrails of the balcony, removing the cigarette from his lips and turning to face his long-time friend. About an half-hour ago, they'd gone outside to take a break from the obnoxiousness of the party, plus Gamzee had wanted a smoke break.

Karkat watched the Gamzee as he smoked, a habit that the highblood had picked up to satisfy his want for the toxic slime that formerly laced his mind. Sure, cigarettes were not even close to being good for you, but it was better than the drug-like effects of sopor slime. He was about to speak up about maybe having his moirail lay off on a pack of the nicotine products a day when his thoughts were interrupted by the troll of concern's question. "Hmm? Oh yeah... I guess it's pretty good that we get to talk to everybody after that shit went down." Gamzee nodded a bit as Karkat responded, his vision drifting back towards the hive. "And aren't you going to do something for your little girly?" He grinned in a somewhat lazy fashion, elbowing his friend in the ribcage. Karkat's face lit up a bit when he remembered the little ceremony he had planned to hold in celebration of him and Terezi's relationship. "Fuck! Almost forgot about that! I'll go find her, you go ahead and stay out here." However, Gamzee released the cigarette from his hands, letting it drop from the balcony and land on the pebbled terrain below. "Nah, I'll come with. Nothin' to do out here anyways." Karkat watchd his empty expression for a moment before nodding and heading inside, the indigo-blood following soon afterwards. After Karkat went inside, he forgot about his moirail and began searching for his elusive matesprit. Knowing Terezi, she was probably messing with him again, as she thought that it was hilarious to get him all worked up about nothing. _Hell, she's probably chatting with Nepeta somewhere, giggling about how I'll show up and start yelling_. He fumed to himself, while his dark-rimmed eyes raked the large room for the colorful teal-blood. Normally her loud voice would have been heard over the other's... Speaking of which, where were Kanaya and Nepeta, too? He hadn't seen either of them since the party started... He frowned a bit and walked over to Tavros and Feferi.

"Hey, Karkrab~! We were just talking about you!" Feferi waved a bit at him, removing her arm from around Tavros's shoulder and then holding both out for a hug. Karkat declined the hug, but Feferi ignored his discomfort and wrapped him in a tight embrace, allowing little room for air. And that was the second time in the same day. _Stay calm, just ask about Terezi after you get out of her strangle-hold_. He sighed irritably and cleared his throat. Feferi promptly released him, though her good mood remained unaffected by his reaction. Okay, now that that's over with... He cleared his throat again and began speaking in a friendly, though prompt tone. "Nice to see you, it's been at least a year, hasn't it?" The seadweller nodded vigorously and replied. "A year and a month! How've you been doing?" She held back a fish pun, much to Karkat's relief. Just from occasionally chatting with her and Nepeta had made the redblood sick and tired of their jokes. Hell, he didn't even understand what was so funny about half of them. Karkat excused the distractments from his mind and awnsered her evenly. "I've been doing great, me and Terezi have been getting along better than usual." _As in not trying to kill eachother every other moment. _

_"Were you talking to her again~? It seems like you interact more with her every day than you talk to me every damn week!" Terezi shouted from the hallway, her eyes burning holes through her matesprit's laptop. "Terezi, calm down, I was just saying hello for once! I let you talk to Vriska, don't I?" Karkat exited out of the chatroom and closed the device, looking over at the furious midblood. Once again, she was twisting him and Nepeta's conversations into something they weren't. Terezi simply huffed and stalked away, intentions of irritating Karkat burnt into her mind. Karkat sighed and buried his face into a pillow, dreading what she had in store for him._

"...Karkrab? Are you even listening?" Feferi pouted, shaking the startled lowblood by his shoulders. "W-what?! Oh, yeah, I'm listening...Of course!" Karkat exclaimed, hoping that his random response would somehow relate to what she had been saying. His hopes came true when a triumphant smirk spread across Feferi's pretty face. "Hah, I knew it! Imma go tell her right now~!" Without another word, the seadweller bounded off enthusiastically, leaving a very confused Karkat behind.


	6. Beauty in the Raw

Remember when you were a child, and always kept that light in the hallway on? Even though you were _not_ afraid of the dark, obviously. You just preferred sleeping with a light on while you slept.

Well, do you also remember when your mother or father would walk by and turn it off while you were still awake, and you didn't want to venture into the dark hallway to flick the light switch back on?

Imagine that as your mind, the light representing something akin to hope, sanity perhaps. Words can not really describe this light that fills your head, illuminating every little thought that fills those forgotten niches and crevices. A cloud would occasionally pass through the cavity, overthrowing the sun for a few hours, maybe someone upset you with some menial remark. Of course you'd get over it soon enough and go back to your normal self.

Now, imagine that tenfold its usual form, an entire storm inside your mind, dampening that hope until it was snuffed out, along with the 'light' mentioned earlier. You've probably felt as if that happened to you in the past. You feel sorry for yourself now, don't you? But you have never experienced what our poor little character is going through at the moment; a torrent of thoughts battering that little lightbulb of her's, threatening to smash the glass into millions of razor-blade shrapnel. Maybe the cracks have already imploded? Who knows, me and you will never know what's going on inside that sodden imagination inside her cranium. But back to the story, I hope that gave you at least a glance into what Nepeta is going through at the moment, whether you think of her as our heroine or villain.

* * *

"You can be just like her... Karkitty won't even miss her, you'll be here to comfort him! Heck, maybe you'll make an even better Purrezi than_ that one_ was!" The voice echoed a few times inside the warmly decorated restroom, a cheerful mask shrouding the hopeless, broken face that lay beneath.

A line was traced from the soft jaw line to the base of her pointed ear, shining olive thread following after the claw-like blade as it was pressed against giving skin. A cut the same as that on (the now-deceased) Terezi Pyrope's face, given to the tealblood years earlier by the infamous a now dead spy, Jack Noir. Or at least she had told the group of longtime friends/acquaintances.

Nepeta finally withdrew her hand, satisfied by her gleaming, dripping work. A small smile spread across her teal-painted lips at the sight. "Beautiful... Just a few more things, and you'll be so, so very similar~! Maybe we even pass for twins, just maybe!" 'Beautiful', in reality, is a term that was far-fetched from what the young teenager had created of herself. Pretty, perhaps, but not beautiful any more. She was too far gone and had cut too deep for the scars, mentally and now physically, to heal back to her former loveliness.

She'd been at it for a while, perhaps half an hour or so, time didn't really apply to her mind any more. Not that it mattered to her, either way. "Now for the last step to _purr_fection!" Nepeta giggled, her voice raising to a coquettish cackle of primeval delight.

_Drip_..._Drip_...

Olive liquid of a syrup-like texture began to paint the floor with small, careless brushes at what our cute, _innocent _little cat-troll had just done to herself.

Nepeta dug her faux claws into the abused skin surrounding her eye, nerves screaming for her to stop, but to no avail; their owner was bent on making herself perfect; absolutely and unrivaled; _perfect_. The grey epidermis tore, a childishly innocent smile spreading across the seven-sweep-old's lips at her self-inflicted operation. With a few quick twists of the blades, she had grazed her eye, baring some of the socket behind in a grotesque display of muscle and gore not unlike that of present-day human horror movies.

Pain was a sense seemingly unknown to Nepeta as she proceeded to tear the organ straight from her skull, nervous tissue and such following bit-by-bit as those deadly knives were sunken further into her mutilated face, drawing all traces of visibilty from that side of her head. "Pretty...I'm just as pretty as your precious Terezi now, see, Karkat? See?! Aren't I perfect!?" Traces of utter and complete madness slipped into her voice at her screams, demanding an awnser from the unseen object of her desire, a desire that was sure to bring her to a premature grave.

"Blind... I will be blind, just like her..." Nepeta calmed a bit as she clutched her throbbing eyesocket with one hand and fondled the severed organ in her other, blood dripping down her arms and pooling onto the floor. It was a miracle that no one had heard her by now, no one had came to her rescue to pick her up from the pit she'd fallen into.

"NEPETA! NEPETA LEIJON!" An animalistic cry came from the hall outside the locked room she had painted with her own color, one of rage, distraught, but above all, brokenness. Nothing I, the author, could ever even come close to describing, even if I spent the rest of my life on this petty work of writing, could give justice to the utter cry of emotion that came from the hallway on that fateful night.

* * *

{ Author's note-

If you're still following this for some odd reason, I'd like to thank you... ;w;

I have sudden urges to write stuff like this, and I was in a particularly gruesome mood... So here~ 3

No hate, please. Nepeta is actually my favorite character, and it killed me to kill the others off... QnQ


	7. Hazy

A cautious silence settled over the bathroom for the next few minutes in passing, either of them wary of what lay on the other side of the door. But while one person was trembling within themselves, the other was hardly disturbed by the sudden commotion.

Nepeta was the first to break the silence. Her voice was off-key; detached-sounding.

"AC's _busy_ in here...You'll have to wait outside for a while. Maybe a few hours..." The voice trailed off with a wavering tone.

"Maybe a few hours..." She quietly repeated herself, her eye drifting to the wobbling doorknob. Whoever was on the other side wanted to come visit her...? Only one person is allowed to visit AC.

_Karkat...It must be Karkat. Karkat_. _Karkat_. Nepeta repeated the foreign-sounding name in mind a few times before it actually registered in her memory. The usually simple task of walking was extremely difficult; raising herself from her perch on the toilet lid and standing on wobbling, toothpick legs with needles for bones, each movement sending green lights flashing across her lone eye. After a few steps, leaps in Nepeta's wavering mind, she did a few silent breathing exercises. Little did our heroine...Well, main character, know, even if Karkat didn't kill her, blood loss was already heavily underway. Enough of the green fluid coated the floor that the troll outside could see something seeping into the carpet.

"Open this door, or I'll open it for you." Nepeta's suspicions were confirmed as to who the voice belonged to when Karkat spoke, his voice cracked and leaking through the doorcracks.

When no voice replied to him, Karkat took it upon himself to go through with the threat. After a few bravery-boosting exercises and a turn of an unbearably shaky hand, the two trolls' only separation was gone.

"Nepeta...Nepeta..." This wasn't Nepeta. This bloodied, broken, half-hearted girl was not Nepeta, just a sick kind of doppelgänger. Even her detached smile wasn't familiar. "Who are you?" Karkat blinked at her. Where was his annoying little...friend? For the first time, Karkat felt a pang of loneliness for the girl.

_Terezi is_ dead._ Kanaya is_ dead _again_. _Nepeta_..._Nepeta's_ dead.

The first two losses had racked his blood-pumping organ, scissoring in half his so-called 'heartstrings'. Two of the most important people in his life- gone. Looking back, Karkat realized he'd never even said anything nice to the girl who stood in front of him, smiling as if there wasn't copious amounts of her own blood seeping down her face and there wasn't any blood stains on the dress that would've caught his attention on any other occasion.

The name registered after a space of silence. _Karkat? _Nepeta wasn't quite sure if she'd actually spoken or not. Either way, it seemed like Karkat had noticed her. She blinked hazily at him. Something vaguely green was beginning to obscure her view.

They looked at each other blankly for a few moments. It was doubtful that either would survive the encounter, both knew. It would be stupid to think that Karkat would 'forgive and forget'.

The girl in front of him thought she was perfect right now. No, she _knew_ she was perfect. Everything was perfect; the teal blemish Karkat must have _pretended_ to love was gone, wiped clean from the picture. Karkat would finally come to his senses and love her now, of course.

"Nepeta..." Karkat held out his arms to her. After all these sweeps and all her crimes, those perfect arms were held out, just for her. An excuse to leave all those things behind and accept a new reality. One where there was no girl that killed her friends, a reality where there was a patched-up girl, a glued-together girl, a girl that knew when she had done the unforgivable. Nepeta would later reflect upon her mistakes. In a proper state of mind, she was a reasonable, if eccentric, person.


End file.
